


I’m tired of fighting, will we ever find peace?

by Toomanyfandoms99



Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bar, Coda, Drama, Episode: s15e05 Proverbs 17:3, Friendship, Kansas, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e05 Proverbs 17:3, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toomanyfandoms99/pseuds/Toomanyfandoms99
Summary: “You’re going to fucking fix this,” Sam says, “right goddamn now.”Dean narrows his eyes, lazily looking up at Sam.  “Is that right?”Sam sends Dean his fiercest, most powerful bitch face.Dean does not budge.Sam frowns bitterly.  “Fine, chickenshit.  I’ll call him myself.”
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517966
Comments: 12
Kudos: 195





	I’m tired of fighting, will we ever find peace?

**Author's Note:**

> The title was taken from the song “Fix It” by Dinah Jane.
> 
> This is unlike my usual codas, focusing on a friendship rather than a romantic relationship.

Sam stares at the unanswered wall of texts on his smartphone and clicks his screen off.

Dean is playing with the cap of his beer bottle, turning it over and spinning it like a quarter. He is disinterested in his third slice of pizza, which is left half-uneaten on a paper plate.

Dean has been like this for a while. Since Sam had his nightmares to deal with, he hasn’t been paying attention as much as he should.

Sam places his blacked-out smartphone on the war room table with a resounding thud. Dean picks up the noise, his gaze sweeping over Sam’s contemplatively.

Sam decides he’s going to ask it.

“Dean,” he asks, “where’s Cas?”

Dean bats his lashes a single time, his fingernails tapping on the tabletop. His eyes fix on his hands, and on the unfinished pizza slice.

He does not answer.

Sam presses his lips together, and repeats, “where’s Cas?”

Dean inhales sharply, his head snapping up to meet Sam’s. “I heard you,” he says harshly, his eyes glistening with...is that pain?

Unshed tears?

“He’s gone,” Dean says gruffly. “Get used to it.”

Dean suddenly picks up the pizza slice and finishes it to distract himself.

Eating his feelings, much?

Sam can’t take any more of this. He knows what Dean and Cas have is unspoken, but they didn’t have to drag him into it.

Cas would at least see him, right?

Dean never thinks about these things. Cas is his best friend. When Dean ices Cas out, he’s icing out Sam too.

Sam decides that he’s had enough.

“What did you say to him?” Sam accuses.

Danger is a glint in Dean’s eyes, and Sam does not back down. That danger tells him what he needs to know.

Whatever happened was Dean’s fault, not Cas’s. And Dean knows it as well as he knows how to kill monsters.

Dean, to Sam’s surprise, does not answer. 

In fact, his macho demeanor sinks.

Dean goes right for the neck of the beer bottle, and Sam crosses the war room table. He takes away the bottle before Dean could even grip it tight enough.

Sam places the beer bottle a foot out of Dean’s reach, and he scowls.

“You’re going to fucking fix this,” Sam says, “right goddamn now.”

Dean narrows his eyes, lazily looking up at Sam. “Is that right?”

Sam sends Dean his fiercest, most powerful bitch face. 

Dean does not budge.

Sam frowns bitterly. “Fine, chickenshit. I’ll call him myself.”

Sam’s movements are harsh as he crosses the table and grabs the smartphone. He presses number two on speed dial, entering the hallway as Cas’s end of the line rings.

A ring is good, right?

Sam advances down the hallway, wandering the bunker aimlessly waiting for Cas to please, pretty please, pick up.

On the tenth ring, when Sam is about to give up, a gruff voice answers, “what?”

“Cas!” Sam exclaims happily, nearly laughing to spite the imaginary Dean in his head. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Cas replies grumpily. “What do you want?”

Sam frowns; Cas never takes such a tone with him. “To see if you were alright.”

“Well, I’m alright. Anything else?”

Sam almost doesn’t ask it, since Cas seems testy, but his curiosity overrides his logic. “Can I ask what happened?”

Cas makes a disgruntled noise. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve been texting you for weeks, worried about my friend. What am I supposed to know?”

Cas’s sigh is so heavy and deep that he sounds his age, a celestial being eons old. “Dean blames me,” he says vaguely, “so I left. You can’t get me to come back.”

Sam grits his teeth. He has half a mind to stride into the war room and punch his older brother in the face.

“I need to talk to you in person,” Sam says. “I need your opinion on...something.”

Cas does not speak. He is insanely hesitant.

Sam adds, “I promise I’ll come alone. I just...I need someone smart to help me with a problem.”

“You think I’m smart?”

Sam furrows his brows. “Of course. Now, where are you right now?”

Cas pauses again. “I can be in Kansas in an hour.”

Sam nearly sighs in relief.

————

Sam enters the bar Dean frequents in town, reserving a corner booth. Dean is passed out in his bedroom, so Sam figures he won’t realize he’s left.

When Cas slides into the seat across from him, Sam has to blink twice.

Without the suit and trench coat, Cas is practically naked. He wears a worn pair of jeans, a cotton black tee, and a dark peacoat cast over his shoulders. There is a sharpness to his features, a clarity and brightness to his eyes that normally wasn’t there. His hair, too, was quite long, strands sticking up in certain directions.

Sam humorously thinks of Harry Potter.

“Cas,” Sam smiles kindly, “you look well.”

Cas’s brows pinch as he studies Sam. “I cannot say the same about you.”

Sam laughs and, for some reason, feels guilty.

“I presume,” Cas says soberingly, “something out of the ordinary happened.”

“Story of our lives,” Sam jokes, frowning when it does not land. “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I’ve been having...nightmares.”

Cas perches his chin on his wrist, held up by an elbow on the table. “Okay…”

“Remember how I was shot in the shoulder?”

Cas nods.

“It connects me to Chuck.”

Cas stares for a moment, then blinks. “I thought it was over.”

Sam shakes his head. “Chuck is currently writing an ending. To...well...to end us.”

Cas leans back in the booth, sitting in a contemplative stance resembling a bird, his knees partially up on the seat. 

“Not me,” he declares. “Not to end me.”

Sam reads something in Cas’s expression, and has the same epiphany.

“You’re right,” Sam breathes, leaning forward on the table. “You weave in and out of our lives. You can easily be…”

Sam winces, refusing to voice the ending of the sentence.

Cas does it for him. “Forgotten?”

Sam swallows thickly, glancing down at the tabletop. “I don’t mean-”

“I know. You mean Chuck.” 

Sam looks up at him hesitantly. His guilt returns, roiling in his empty stomach. The wonder of his epiphany returns uneasily. “You can be the key to end it. All of it.”

Cas does not acknowledge the claim. “What do these nightmares contain?”

Sam replies numbly, “the ways that Dean and I could kill each other.” His words are heavy, enough to pull him underneath the wooden floorboards. “That’s what Chuck wants.”

There are a few beats of silence, and Cas readjusts in his seat, boots touching the floor again.

“What are the ways?”

Sam can hardly breathe as he says, “there are three so far. In the first, I drink demon blood and use my powers to snap Dean’s neck.”

Cas does not move a muscle, eerily still and silent despite the ambient sound.

“In the second,” Sam says, “I become Lucifer’s vessel and Dean tries to shoot me. I heal from the wound and burn him alive with hellfire.”

Cas does not breathe.

Sam concludes, “and in the third, Dean has the Mark of Cain and stabs me.”

Cas blinks, his first indication of life in an entire minute. He leans forward to match Sam’s stance.

“Sam,” Cas says, “does Dean know?”

“He knows I have nightmares,” Sam answers, “but not what the exact contents are.”

Cas presses his lips together in a thin line. Disapproval and contempt for Dean is in his gaze, and Sam does not make to defend his brother.

Dean deserves it.

“We can use your wound,” Cas says. “I can get a read on Chuck if what you hypothesize is true.”

Sam nods. “That’s what I was hoping for.”

“Furthermore,” Cas continues, “I certainly think that my presence in your lives,” he pauses, “can become an advantage of sorts. If Chuck forgets about me,” he half-smiles, “then your previous villains could have forgotten about me too.”

Sam’s eyes widen with another realization. “That’s it. Lilith forgot about you!”

Cas narrows his eyes. “Lilith is back?”

Sam nods. “That’s how we know about all this.”

Cas breathes deeply through his nose, weariness reaching his eyes again. “Chuck’s bringing every major monster you’ve ever killed back to life. He will not stop until he succeeds in driving a wedge between you and Dean.”

“Lilith destroyed the Equalizer,” Sam says. “He’s already getting everything he wants.”

Cas stares at Sam for a very long time. “I’ve only been gone for three weeks.”

Sam smiles apologetically. “I need your help, Cas. Dean does too, but he won’t ever admit it. Please help me kill Chuck.”

Cas looks down as he thinks, and Sam does not interrupt him.

Cas says gravely, “I chose the wrong brother.”

Sam sucks in a breath, and he stares. Cas does not pick his head up to meet Sam’s eyes.

An admission of love, no matter how convoluted, was immediate for Sam to register.

He knows how much Cas loves Dean. And he knows Dean will never admit to feeling the same way. 

Even if Dean was currently passed out from drinking too much.

Sam exhales, “it’s just me asking for counsel. You don’t even need to be in the same room as Dean.”

Cas does not balk at Sam revealing his knowledge on his feelings for Dean. 

Cas does not even flinch.

He looks at Sam and decides, “I’ll always help a friend.”

Sam allows himself to feel hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know with kudos and comments if you liked this!


End file.
